Revisiting Jacob. I really don't know why you trust me

Re-visiting Jacob: A Retrospective on the eve of entering a new pre-production phase.

This week I received a green light to mount a one-night event performance of ‘Jacob’, the first theatrical piece I had ever written. Granted the production will most definitely face its obstacles, (we’ll get to that later), but it’s interesting to be revisiting this theatrical work, some fourteen years later than its inception.

I thought it might be interesting and slightly amusing to do a retrospective on the life and history of the play and its incarnations throughout the years (having directed 2 of the 9 total productions of the piece, and returning to do a third this year in, of all places, the area in which the play had its first incarnation, as a short story, back in 1997.

The story was written for an entry into a national short story competition, which was fueled by local competitions. The story was composed as a response to a startling real-life event, the double suicide of two young boys at my then high school. These two boys (they were Freshmen) met in the shallow woods in the area, and sat Indian-style about 10 feet apart, with clock watches on their thighs. On the ground near them was a desecrated statue of the virgin Mary (the entire valley of my upbringing to this day very uber religious). Needless to say, the two boys shot each other, or themselves. The suicides caused quite a stir in the area, and at the school. I remember sitting in an auditorium filled with other teen-agers, as the adults blamed music, and wearing black, and devil worship. As I sat there I realized that they were just as confused as the rest of us, and, as adults do, were scrambling for excuses and an ultimate explanation.

The incident was something I wanted to explore and so I wrote it down, in my own way of working through things. My initial notion centered not on the double suicide, but on the notion of religion, signified by the inclusion of the desecrated stature of the actual events. The story was simply titled ‘Jacob’, and borrowed, I admit it, from the famous Amityville Horror notion of “The Devil Made Me Do It.” I decided to create a story where the action centered on a very real demon persuading a young man to kill himself. It was a dialogue of intelligence, religion, and Dostoeyovsky. It brought up issues such as body image, teen angst, media pressure, etc. and yes, it ended badly. The big twist, I thought, was that the demon was actually a representation of Jacob’s version of his ideal. It was a very deep and serious story, so I was not surprised when the contest judge pulled me aside and told me “This is extremely well written. Thought-provoking, frightening, and way too adult in nature. I just simply can’t include it in the contest”. I was expecting that, lol, and wasn’t upset, because he then informed me that another story I had submitted received first place. And yet another one, had placed 4th. I was a busy writer even then.

That autumn, in my first year at Fordham University, I heard of a One-Act play contest, and wanted desperately to enter. The 4 winning entries would be directed and produced on stage. When thinking of what to write (I had never tried to write in the one-act medium previously), for some reason I thought of ‘Jacob.’ I quickly wrote the play in a new medium, adding a new character dubbed “mother”, and also adding sexuality into the mix, which was only slightly hinted at in the initial story. To my shock and surprise, the script made it into the festival, along with three other extremely talented writers entries. A director was picked, and the show went into casting. Along, with my first foray into theatrical collaboration, with less than desirable results. The director chosen was a competent one, whose only problem was that he insisted on adding a chorus to the mix, and direct the play in some bizarre nazi-age fashion. I was aghast, but obliged (I was a Freshman and new to this, so what could I really do?) The one thing that the director did do correctly was the casting of Jacob and the Demon. The two men who took up these roles were very close friends, and literally made the characters more than I had ever hoped. To this day, they were the perfect cast for the piece. Daring, and uninhibited to the extreme.

Halfway through the rushed rehearsal process, I reached a breaking point. Seeing the play go in a direction I knew in my gut it shouldn’t, seeing physically the actors frustrations, and hearing their complaints, I stepped in, fired the director, and took the reigns myself, trying to salvage what had become at the time, my unholy child. The resulting performance, although complete with a strange chorus (at the time), was one that I was happy with, especially when I heard the audience reactions.

Joan MacIntosh, esteemed actress and director for the New York Stage, gave me possibly the best review ever: “The play shocked, frightened, saddened, and moved me. It really made me think.” With every positive there were also negatives, although another positive response was that both my mother and sister walked out of the 40 minute play, unable to sit through it. My father, bless his heart, held on. (side note: My mother would walk out of another production of mine that was produced the following year: The New York City premiere of Clive Barker’s History of the Devil.)

To this day, I can not thank that cast and crew enough, and would work with them again in a heartbeat. (The demon still lives in Brooklyn, while Jacob is out in San Francisco.)

Four years later, in September 2001 I directed another, toned down version of the play, at the Variety Café Theatre on Rockefeller Square. This production, very much a transitional theatre production, had just three characters. I realized that I couldn’t reproduce the same effect of the original cast, and so I went in the opposite direction with the characters of Jacob and the Demon, now re-named Daemon.

In the Fordham production, both Jacob and the demon were played by very masculine, weight-lifting hunks of men. In the Variety production, they were lanky, lean, compact, and, as a result, less affecting, in my opinion. The fact that the production came on the eve of the attacks on the Twin Towers, well, kind of put a dent in it moving forward with its run. We all thought it best to close the show early.

In the years since, I had taken a pen back to the script, fleshing it out more, and yes, to my admission, adding a chorus, representing Trust, Admiration, Obsession and Despair, and being visible representations of the words, and the turmoil of Jacob himself. Out of everything I have since written and directed, Jacob is, on the whole, the most abstract and conceptualized piece, and I look forward to bringing it back to New York City later this year, probably in the fall, after, of course, this one night charity engagement here in DaValley.

Going into the production, first and foremost, several creative challenges await. (Of Course they do!). The first challenge is the space itself. It is being mounted in the dance floor section of a small gay bar. The stage is very very small, and not the typical stage fashion. How to rectify this? When it is for charity, and once the actors are in there, will be limited audience space? The performance is going to be videotaped live, and shown on the television screens next door in the bar area. So even if they can’t see the action up close and personal, the attendees will still get to experience it through a visual medium.
Of course, setting this up is going to be interesting lol. But first, I have to find a cast. Find the actors and actresses needed to bring this to life, in an area where most of theatre is on the community level, specializing in performances of old-time musicals and comedies. Jacob is neither of these things.

It is a bold, envelope pushing show, and requires a total of 7 uninhibited cast members. (after all, besides the amount of skin shown on stage from Daemon and Jacob, the chorus is mostly costumed in latex body paint, and the ‘mother’ make-up is truly horrifying. Casting is going to be, in a word, a bitch.

A huge factor is the subject matter itself. It’s a very very dark piece. It knows no bounds in its exploration of sex, religion, and depravity. It’s a hard journey for an actor to take, and in an area where there isn’t a backstage casting directory, I have no idea where to begin.

But, alas, its an opportunity to be creative and to do something for charity, so I’m not going to pass it up, and will post all my progress on it here. So stay tuned.